The best iPad apps to help writers track ideas, plan content, get more creative, and everything in between!
Looking for the best iPad apps for writing your next big blog posts, essays, or novels? Because the iPad is so portable, and because it can be used by itself with the multitouch screen or with a connected physical keyboard, it's easy to take with you and use in a wide variety of places. There are also a ton of apps on the iPad App Store to help you organize your workflow, plan your content, write your work, and share it with the world. But which iPad writing apps are the absolute best?
Editorial
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Editorial is a plain text editor for iPad that fully supports Markdown. One of the best features of Editorial are Workflows that lets you combine frequently used actions to customize your writing experience. The keyboard in Editorial was designed around the Markdown language which means you'll never struggle to add a link or grab a symbol that's commonly used in Markdown. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Editorial's feature set.
If most of the writing you do is on the web and you want the best Markdown editor available, look no further than Editorial.
- $4.99 - Download Now
Dropbox
Dropbox is probably the most widely supported and accepted standard for cloud storage. Many apps tie into it, including Editorial for saving your work. Almost any other app you purchase or download that requires saving and syncing data will most likely support Dropbox. It's perfect for saving files and accessing them right on your iPad, Mac, iPhone, and any other platform you may be using.
If you want a singular place to gather your ideas, thoughts, and documents that's widely supported, there's none other than Dropbox.
- Free - Download Now
Mindly
Mindly is an extremely flexible organization and planning tool that lets you gather your thoughts on the go. Gather notes, jot down ideas, plan a piece of writing in its entirety. To be honest, what Mindly becomes is completely up to you. That's what makes it so great, how you use it to create could be completely different from the next person.
If you want a powerful tool to organize your thoughts with zero boundaries, check out Mindly.
- Free - Download Now
Dictionary.com Premium
Dictionary.com Premium is the only dictionary and thesaurus a writer could possibly need. Aside from having zero ads, Dictionary.com features over 2,000,000 dictionary definitions with synonyms and antonyms. To go with those there's 850,000 sample sentences for you to use as resources. There are other dictionaries that boast similar numbers but none of them offer specialized downloads such as a writer's toolbox, slang dictionary, and many other packs as additional upgrades.
If you want the most complete and customizable dictionary experience the App Store has to offer, check out the premium version of Dictionary.com.
- $4.99 - Download Now
Creative Writer
Creative Writer is a predictive text engine that lets you start typing a sentence and then smartly predicts what you may want to say next. The whole idea behind it is to be more liberal and creative when expressing ideas. I've found it to be great for times when you may be stuck on a sentence or don't know exactly how to word something. Start typing it in Creative Writer and see if it can suggest something better.
If you need a little nudge when it comes to figuring out how to say something, Creative Writer needs to be in your writing toolkit.
- $2.99 - Download Now
Trello
Trello offers a lot of flexibility and can work for individual content planning or for larger groups. You can collaborate with others, assign due dates, and more. Trello is a blank canvas that you can add cards and columns to, add members, leave notes, upload attachments, and lots more. Trello is great for planning content where large groups of people are involved. It's actually the planning tool we use across Mobile Nations to organize and map out content and ideas. It really is that good.
If you need a powerful planning tool that lets you collaborate with others, you don't want anything other than Trello.
- Free - Download Now
Bonus: Writing Aid for iPhone
Writing Aid isn't available for iPad but I just wouldn't feel right leaving it out of a writing app roundup. Not only is Writing Aid one of the most convenient dictionaries you'll ever find, it can help you remember a word that you forgot by simply explaining it. If you're stumped trying to recall a specific word, just type into Writing Aid a few key words about it, and it'll give you a list of words that it thinks you may be thinking of. For times when you have writer's block, Writing Aid for iPhone saves the day.
If you have an iPhone and want something to help you overcome writer's block or a convenient way to find synonyms for commonly used words, you want Writing Aid.
- $0.99 - Download Now
Your favorite writing apps for iPad?
If you use your iPad to write on a regular basis, what apps are your favorites? Do you use any of the above on a regular basis? Be sure to let me know in the comments!
(And yes, we're all waiting for Scrivner for iPad too!)
